Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23550 (Dev Channel)

[Brandon LeBlanc]

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23550 to the Dev Channel.

What’s new in Build 23550​

Voice Access in OOBE  ​

As part of the work mentioned in Build 23516 for making voice access available to use on more areas in Windows, voice access can be used for setting up your new Windows devices and navigate through OOBE (“out of box experience”). You can launch the accessibility flyout on the bottom right corner of their screens and click on voice access to enable it. [caption id="attachment_176590" align="alignnone" width="680"] Users can use the accessibility flyout in OOBE to launch voice access.[/caption] NOTE: You will need to make sure you set up an internet connection while setting up a new device to enable the language model download and set up voice access to use it. You can navigate OOBE, insert passwords using the on-screen keyboard, type text using dictation and control your mouse and focus using number and grid overlays once voice access has been enabled. [caption id="attachment_176591" align="alignnone" width="680"] Number overlays using voice access in OOBE.[/caption] FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Accessibility > Voice Access.

Changes and Improvements​

[Windows Subsystem for Linux]​

• The September 2023 update for the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is rolling out and includes networking improvements in the latest Insider Preview builds. See this blog post for more details.

Fixes​

[General]​

• Fixed an underlying issue which was causing sporadic explorer.exe and Start menu crashes for Insiders in recent builds.

[File Explorer]​

• Fixed an issue which was causing thumbnails in Gallery to flash sometimes when scrolling.

[Start]​

• Fixed an issue that was causing some icons in Start’s recommended section not to show correctly.

[Search on the Taskbar]​

• Fixed an issue where the magnifying glass wasn’t displaying correctly when search was set to “Search icon and label”.

[Task Manager]​

• Fixed an issue where the dialog when collecting a process memory dump erroneously said it was collecting a kernel memory dump.
• Fixed an issue causing Task Manager to not launch for some Insiders.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

Known issues​

[Start menu]​

• Some apps under All apps on the Start menu, such as PWA apps installed via Microsoft Edge, may incorrectly be labeled as a system component.

[Windows Copilot]​

• We heard feedback from Insiders in the Dev Channel that the Windows Copilot Preview is not available in some regions. We found an issue and plan to re-enable it for these Insiders with a fix in a future flight.
• You can use Alt + Tab to switch out of Windows Copilot, but not back into it. Windows + C will move focus back to Windows Copilot
• When first launching or after refreshing Copilot while using voice access you'll need to use "Show grid" commands to click in the "Ask me anything" box for the first time.

For developers​

You can download the latest Windows Insider SDK at aka.ms/windowsinsidersdk. SDK NuGet packages are now also flighting at NuGet Gallery | WindowsSDK which include:

• .NET TFM packages for use in .NET apps as described at aka.ms/windowsinsidersdk
• C++ packages for Win32 headers and libs per architecture
• BuildTools package when you just need tools like MakeAppx.exe, MakePri.exe, and SignTool.exe

These NuGet packages provide more granular access to the SDK and better integration in CI/CD pipelines. SDK flights are now published for both the Canary and Dev Channels, so be sure to choose the right version for your Insider Channel. Remember to use adaptive code when targeting new APIs to make sure your app runs on all customer machines, particularly when building against the Dev Channel SDK. Feature detection is recommended over OS version checks, as OS version checks are unreliable and will not work as expected in all cases.

About the Dev Channel​

REMINDER: The Dev Channel has been rebooted. Windows Insiders who were in the Dev Channel on 25000 series builds have been moved to the new Canary Channel. Going forward, the Dev Channel will receive 23000 series builds. Insiders who were moved to the Canary Channel and want to move back to the Dev Channel can follow these instructions to do a clean installation of Windows 11 and then re-join the Dev Channel to receive 23000 series builds. The Dev Channel receives builds that represent long lead work from our engineers with features and experiences that may never get released as we try out different concepts and get feedback. It is important to remember that the builds we release to the Dev Channel should not be seen as matched to any specific release of Windows and the features included may change over time, be removed, or replaced in Insider builds or may never be released beyond Windows Insiders to general customers. For more information, please read this blog post about how we plan to use the Dev Channel to incubate new ideas, work on long lead items, and control the states of individual features. In some cases, features and experiences may go out to the Canary Channel first before going out to the Dev Channel however the Dev Channel will provide better platform stability. As we get closer to shipping, some features and experiences will also make their way to the Beta Channel when they are ready. The desktop watermark you see at the lower right corner of your desktop is normal for these pre-release builds.

Important Insider Links​

• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks, Amanda & Brandon

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